Nothing says naked ambition quite like sitting in a conference sponsored by the National Journal and profitized educator University of Phoenix, shooting the breeze on camera and accidentally referring to oneself as Vice President. Nah, Marco Rubio isn't an ambitious young buck or anything, is he?
Here's what he said:
"Three, four, five, six, seven years from now, if I do a good job as a Vice President -- I'm sorry, as Senator, I'll have the chance to do all sorts of things," Rubio said today.
And even as he assures Sean Hannity he has no desire to be Vice President, he appeared with Mitt Romney at a campaign event on Monday. According to Bloomberg News, the short list looks like this, in addition to Rubio, of course:
Ohio Senator Rob Portman, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell -- who have all appeared with Romney and campaigned on his behalf - - are also regarded as strong prospects.
Well, there's what the country needs. A bunch of rich white dudes. There was a time where I would have thought Romney would cross Rubio off the list because of his baggage, but I don't anymore. After all, this is the Etch-a-Sketch candidacy, where all one has to do is shake the slate clean and make a new picture. If Mitt Romney can do it, why not Marco Rubio?
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising star in the Republican Party and a favorite among conservatives to round out the party's ticket this fall, endorsed Mitt Romney for president on Wednesday evening.
Rubio's endorsement is a marker of support that many candidates had sought. It comes at a point in the campaign at which Romney has sought to coalesce Republicans behind his candidacy.
"I don't have a problem with primaries, but I think we're at a stage now where at least two of the candidates have admitted that the only way to get the nomination is to have a floor fight at the convention," Rubio said before announcing his support for Romney on Fox News.
Now as everyone's known for weeks, Willard's got this thing wrapped up. So there's only one reason for Rubio to endorse at this point. In fact, it could be argued that if he doesn't want on the ticket, this is a really dumb move, because it diminishes his Teahadist street cred.
Marco Rubio would be problematic for Mitt Romney for many reasons. There's the small matter of his embellishments around the story of his parents' immigration from Cuba. There is the question of his free-wheeling ways with money that wasn't his. He pals around with wife beaters, and sometimes even hires them. But all of that would probably not stop Willard from considering Rubio for the ticket, because after the shameless pandering he has done on immigration, he needs to boost his image in the Latino community with someone they might relate to.
However, I wonder how Hispanics would react if they knew Marco Rubio was a Mormon. Now he may not be Mormon in good standing at this time, but he was baptized into the Mormon Church and was active there until he returned to the Catholic Church at age 13. Via Buzzfeed:
Rubio was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his family at around the age of eight, and remained active in the faith for a number of years during his early youth, family members told BuzzFeed.
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant confirmed the story to BuzzFeed. Conant said Rubio returned to the Catholic church a few years later with his family, receiving his first communion on Christmas day in 1984 at the age of 13.
The revelation adds a new dimension to Rubio's already-nuanced religious history—and could complicate his political future at a time when many Republicans see him as the odds-on favorite for the 2012 vice presidential nod. Vice presidential candidates are traditionally chosen to provide ethnic and religious balance to a ticket. Mitt Romney's Mormonism and Rubio's Catholic faith would already mean the first two members of minority traditions on a Republican ticket in American history. Rubio's Mormon roots could further complicate that calculation.
A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood.
Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
Obviously, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson were Saul Alinsky types who wanted to transform America into a socialist dystopia.
For some reason, the media refuses to point out that the GOP has become radicalized to the point that the very notion of a progressive tax -- which has been in place since World War One -- is offensive to them.
A party which wants to repeal the 20th century isn't "conservative" -- it's radical. That needs to be repeated again and again and again.
Despite having a total wingnut for a governor, Florida is a purple state. So I always thought Newt would have a hard time pulling it out there, and it looks like in the wake of last night's debate, he's in big trouble.
Just four days before the nation's first big-state presidential primary, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney opens up a 38 - 29 percent lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich among Republican likely voters in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Only 6 percent are undecided, but 32 percent say they might change their mind by Tuesday.
This compares to results of a January 25 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University, showing Romney with 36 percent of likely primary voters to Gingrich's 34 percent. Wednesday's survey showed Gingrich ahead 40 - 34 percent among voters surveyed after the South Carolina primary.
Why should we care about Marco Rubio embellishing the tale of his parent's immigration? Because it really does matter. It carries a great deal of significance not only in the Cuban communities in Florida, but across the nation.
Rubio has presented himself as an exile for very specific reasons. He wants the narrative that he fled political oppression to come to this country and make something of himself without bootstraps. He has painted his family as political refugees, when in fact, they're economic refugees just like 99.9 percent of the other immigrants in this country.
A simple embellishment for political gain. After all, how could Rubio be anti-immigrant if he descends from an immigrant family? How could Rubio possibly identify with Latino immigrants as a conservative without changing his own history? Just a little date change and he becomes part of something he and his family never were.
Rubio's response when the story hit the airwaves was to push back with this:
I now know that they entered the U.S. legally on an immigration visa in May of 1956. Not, as some have said before, as part of some special privilege reserved only for Cubans. They came because they wanted to achieve things they could not achieve in their native land.
That paragraph summarizes the essence of why many have come to this country, including Mexican immigrants who have literally risked their lives to enter this country. There is only one difference between the children of Rubio's parents and the children of Latino immigrants all around this country, and it's a significant one. Those immigrants are being threatened, demonized, tossed into privatized prison systems and deported because our immigration policy is practically non-existent. No family from Mexico could present themselves at an immigration office, apply for a visa and declare their intent to stay permanently simply because they wanted opportunity. Political exiles might have a chance, but not those who were simply choosing to immigrate.
By claiming this...
I am the son of immigrants and exiles, raised by people who know all too well that you can lose your country. By people who know firsthand that America is a very special place.
...Rubio flatly lied. His parents came to this country in 1956 looking for economic opportunity. They declared at that time they intended to stay permanently. The fact that Castro came to power in 1959 makes a nice excuse to claim his parents were exiles, but it's simply not true. They came here looking for opportunity and assumed they'd be able to return to Cuba for visits whenever they could. Castro complicated the latter, but didn't change the former.
Marco Rubio is just like every immigrant family -- Latino, Irish, Italian, Pakistani or otherwise -- who comes to this country seeking opportunity and a better life. The only difference is that Marco Rubio has allied with political forces who don't want the same for anyone else. He altered his family history to fit a politically expedient narrative and has ridden it farther than he should have.
During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the son of exiles, he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power.
But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that Rubio’s dramatic account of his family saga embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than 21 / 2 years before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959.
It looks like Rubio embellished his family's plight for political gain.
In 2006, on the eve of his ascendancy to speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio told an audience that “in January of 1959 a thug named Fidel Castro took power in Cuba and countless Cubans were forced to flee and come here, many – most – here to America. When they arrived they were welcomed by the most compassionate people on all the Earth.”
Wearing a red flower in his lapel, his voice sometimes emotional, he praised those who fled, calling them “a great generation.” But he also assured them: “Today your children and grandchildren are the secretary of commerce of the United States and multiple members of Congress, they are the CEO of Fortune 500 companies and successful entrepreneurs, they are Grammy winning artists and they are renowned journalists, they are a United States senator and soon, even speaker of the Florida House.” The speech drew heavy coverage in Florida, for it was a momentous event. Rubio was the first Cuban American to become speaker of the House in the Florida Legislature...read on
And now it looks like Orly Taitz' group of fanatics are doing us some good for a change.
Unable to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president, rigid followers of the Constitution have turned their attention to another young, charismatic politician many think could one day occupy the White House. The birthers are focusing on U.S. Sen Marco Rubio, the budding Republican star from Florida.
“It’s nothing to do with him personally. But you can’t change the rules because you like a certain person. Then you have no rules,” said New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo. Forget about the alleged Photoshopped birth certificates; the activists are not challenging whether Rubio was born in Miami. Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
The rub is that “natural born citizen” was never defined. The birthers rely on writings at the time of the formation of the republic and references in court cases since then to contend that “natural born” means a person born to U.S. citizens. Rubio was born in 1971 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, his office said, but his parents did not become citizens until 1975. “Marco Rubio was born a Cuban citizen via his parents,” screams a headline on a blog by birther Charles Kerchner, who obtained copies of the naturalization petitions by Rubio’s parents in May, igniting talk that is spreading across the Web.
I can't lie and say that I'm not enjoying this, but isn't he covered under the 14th amendment? At least these people are staying consistent with their weirdness. Rubio, who said that Social Security/Medicare Make Us Lazy has been a tea party hero.
Rush Limbaugh anointed Rubio as the next big deal in the GOP so I wonder if he'll step in and target one of his big constituencies, the Birthers. Who knew that WND would serve a useful purpose after all.
So the beltway media has been abuzz this week about Senator Marco Rubio’s increasing national profile. Reporters have been experiencing a case of “starbursts” through their keyboards. They wrote up a slobbering profile of the freshman GOP Senator. Then just days ago Rubio gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan library.
1) Buttered-up profile pieces. Easily done. The Reagan speech got Rubio a McClatchy storyabout how Nancy Reagan personally beckoned him to Simi Valley. "You’ve been identified as someone to watch on the national political scene," she said, giving future Rubio-profile-writers an insta-quote for the beginning of the what-people-are-saying section. From McClatchy, we also learn that John Boehner quoted Rubio, and that this is significant.
2) Scene pieces. See the Frank story for that. Most of the early coverage of Rubio's speech informed us that 1) he gave a speech, 2) the crowd was huge, and 3) he helped up Nancy Reagan when she stumbled.
3) Micro policy news. In the debt speech, Rubio, who had not taken a lead role in the debt limit debate, staked his position: There could be no putting off the "day of reckoning." In Simi Valley, he came out for a gradual Social Security phase-out.
Tea Partiers and Conservatives live in their own reality, especially when it comes to numbers. They find an easily digestible sound-byte line and they repeat it into the ground. Florida's Marco Rubio, or Mr. Tea Party, refused to back Paul Ryan's budget mess when asked if he supported it on MTP and then made up his own numbers pertaining to Medicare and what the Ryan budget actually does. David Gregory asked Rubio questions and instead of answering him outright, he deflected the question and said he's for anything that will fix the budget. Oh, where's the love? Here's the CBO on RyanCare:
Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario. … CBO estimates that average spending in traditional Medicare will be 89 percent of (that is, 11 percent less than) the spending that would occur if that same package of benefits was purchased from a private insurer.
Rubio makes up magical numbers to defend cuts to Medicare and said that Ryan's budget actually increased funding to Medicare while sticking to the previously debunked notion that HCR will cut 500 billion out of Medicare.
Rubio: The Ryan plan doesn't cut Medicare, it actually increases funding in it and the only people in this town that have voted to cut medicare that are the people who supported Obamacare, that cut half a trillion dollars for the next ten years from medicare.
FactCheck.org: Cost Saving Provisions "Not A Slashing Of The Current Medicare Budget Or Benefits." According to FactCheck.org: "Whatever you want to call them, it's a $500 billion reduction in the growth of future spending over 10 years, not a slashing of the current Medicare budget or benefits. It's true that those who get their coverage through Medicare Advantage's private plans (about 22 percent of Medicare enrollees) would see fewer add-on benefits; the bill aims to reduce the heftier payments made by the government to Medicare Advantage plans, compared with regular fee-for-service Medicare. The Democrats' bill also boosts certain benefits: It makes preventive care free and closes the 'doughnut hole,' a current gap in prescription drug coverage for seniors." [FactCheck.org, 3/19/10]
Screaming that Medicare is going broke must be Frank Luntz' instructions to Conservative since that's all Rubio kept coming back to. But that ignores the second half of the sentence: "...under current revenue structures." How does privatizing this system (which then builds in corporate profits rather than the pay for service system now) make things better? What happens to seniors who can't afford the additional costs imposed upon them by the Ryan plan? Proposing ludicrous ideas are not brave.
Jonathan Chait debunks Paul Ryan in an interview he conducted with the Wisconsin Congressman in a post called: Debunking Paul Ryan's Latest Spin
“Only” is a slightly misleading term here, since $4.5 trillion dollars would still represent a large spending cut. But wait! The House Republican budget also calls for tax cuts—$4.2 trillion of them. In other words, the tax cuts in the House Republican budget would very nearly offset the spending cuts, leaving just $380 billion in additional savings over ten years.
It would be nice if our beltway media would arm themselves with enough facts about this entire debate so that when Conservatives lie about the numbers they could actually correct them on the spot and not at a later date or if ever. I know it's a bit complicated, but letting lies go unchallenged is not an option either.
Marco Rubio stiffed the new Tea Party Caucus in the Senate, and so did almost all the Conservatives who were elected in November:
Although dozens of Republicans sailed into office with the help of the conservative "tea party" movement last year, finding a self-identified "tea party Republican" on Capitol Hill is harder than you'd think. The first meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus on Thursday attracted just four senators — out of 47 GOP members — willing to describe themselves as members. The event was as notable for who wasn't there as who was.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), once a tea party favorite, has for now declined to join the caucus, whose first meeting was organized by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican whose campaign sprung from the small-government movement, has said he's unsure if he'll join. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) showed up to address the group of activists, but then hustled out of the room, ignoring reporters' questions about whether he was in or out.
The reluctance shows how the purposefully disjointed movement and its crop of outspoken and controversial leaders, although a powerful force in the campaign that spurred Republicans to a big midterm victory, are still viewed as risky allies even for conservative politicians. With the rhetoric of the campaign now translating into debate over politically painful budget cuts, the tea party agenda looks less like the hub of Republican energy in Congress and more like an endpoint of the spectrum.
Lawrence O'Donnell had on Judson Phillips from the Tea Party Nation yesterday, and he asked him why these newly elected Tea Partiers refused to join the new coalition. Judson was evasive -- and as we've seen with The Tea Party Stepford Bots so far, they will apologize, rationalize and make excuses for their newly minted leaders until the cows come home. O'Donnell thinks it's a significant development, because in the Senate you need unity and deal-making to get things done, and this shows a breakdown in their alignment. I agree and disagree. Yes, Rubio stiffed them and that's significant because he was the initial poster boy for the Tea Party movement, but I want to offer a word of caution about this.
